LVCVA Extends Deadline To July 18 For Companies To Apply For 2027 College Football National Championship Game Contract
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — If sports marketing is your expertise, then you have a chance to submit a bid to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) to work on the 2027 College Football Playoff national championship game at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas in Jan. 2027.
The LVCVA, which decided a month ago to rebid the CFP game contract, has extended the date to apply for the team and game management services job to July 18 after it was first set at July 7 and then July 14. Here’s the LVCVA Request For Proposal information listed on the state’s contract bid website. This shows the initial deadline of July 7, but now it’s July 18.
The LVCVA released to LVSportsBiz.com a July 7 memo showing the publicly-funded tourism agency’s investigation into an initial request for proposal that resulted in Phoenix-founded Position Sports receiving an $1.236 million bid award to work on the CFP title game in Las Vegas in 2027. But then the LVCVA decided to rebid the contract in June after LVSportsBiz.com published stories raising issues with the bidding process for this job.
According to the LVCVA summary of findings conducted in-house, former LVCVA Vice President of Sports and Special Events Lisa Motley tried to get the public tourism organization to hire her former husband and close friend, Jeff Motley, “as a contractor through our PR and Communications department to support CFP media efforts. While Mr. Motley is well-respected in the industry, we decided against hiring Mr. Motley as an LVCVA ambassador.”
Lisa Motley also wanted to “hire Position Sports non-competitvely,” according to the memo sent from LVCVA CEO Steve Hill to LVCVA board members. The memo said the LVCVA “determined it was in the best interest of the LVCVA to engage in a competitive procurement for the services.”
The LVCVA summary said, “The panel ultimately selected Position Sports and awarded the contract on March 11. On March 14, we learned Position Sports had hired Jeff Motley as Chief Media Officer.”
While the LVCVA decided in June to rebid the contract, only three months earlier in March LVCVA Board Chairman Jim Gibson’s office told a company owner who unsuccessfuly bid on the first request for proposal in March that the LVCVA bid procedures were followed. “After Commissioner Gibson’s receipt of the above information from the LVCVA, he is confident that the LVCVA Purchasing Department followed all procedures required when awarding the CFP contract to the winning bidder,” a Gibson assistant wrote to Richard Manhattan, owner of entertainment and sports marketing firm Propyrion of Las Vegas.
Well, things changed from March to June and now companies have until July 18 to submit a proposal to work on the CFP national championship game here in Las Vegas.
LVCVA Chief Strategy Officer Ed Finger is now overseeing the bid process for this contract. Las Vegas Events, which is the LVCVA’s non-profit event promotion rm, said it will submit a bid. In addition, two other companies have said they will apply. It’s not known whether Position Sports will submit a bid.
